Hurricane Katrina at 21: The Story the Media Never Fully Told featuring Sandy Rosenthal
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Release Date: 08/18/2026
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The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
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The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
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Hurricane Katrina at 21: The Story the Media Never Fully Told featuring Sandy Rosenthal
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Most of us have been there in some form or another. You know the truth. You can see it. You can feel it. And everywhere you look, the official version of events tells a completely different story. The institutions say one thing. The media repeats it. Slowly, the narrative everyone keeps hearing becomes the narrative everyone starts to believe, even when it is wrong. Sandy Rosenthal refused to let that happen. Twenty-one years ago, when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the floodwaters rose and swallowed whole neighborhoods and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, the country...
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The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
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The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
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The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
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The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
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The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
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The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
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info_outlineMost of us have been there in some form or another.
You know the truth. You can see it. You can feel it. And everywhere you look, the official version of events tells a completely different story. The institutions say one thing. The media repeats it. Slowly, the narrative everyone keeps hearing becomes the narrative everyone starts to believe, even when it is wrong.
Sandy Rosenthal refused to let that happen.
Twenty-one years ago, when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the floodwaters rose and swallowed whole neighborhoods and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, the country was told the same story over and over again. New Orleans was overwhelmed by a massive natural disaster. What Sandy knew, and what she spent the next two decades of her life proving, is that what happened in New Orleans was not simply an act of nature. It was the result of catastrophic failures in a federally designed and constructed flood protection system, and the Army Corps of Engineers worked hard to make sure that story never got out.
This conversation hit me in a way I was not fully prepared for. The story of how one ordinary person with nothing but determination and the internet stood up against a powerful federal agency and eventually changed a national narrative is exactly the kind of Ripple story I started this podcast to tell.
Watch this one to the end. You will not regret it.
More About the Guest
After Hurricane Katrina and the catastrophic federal levee failures in New Orleans, Sandy Rosenthal founded Levees.org, a nonprofit that has grown to 25,000 supporters nationwide. Her book, Words Whispered in Water, tells the story of how she exposed the true culprit behind the disaster, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and how the agency spent millions covering up its own mistakes.
Sandy lives in New Orleans with her husband of 47 years. They have three married children and two grandchildren. When she is not holding federal agencies accountable, she plays tennis five days a week and practices advanced yoga.
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Get a copy of Sandy’s book Words Whispered in Water:
https://www.wordswhisperedinwater.com/
More About the Host
Steve Harper is the founder of Ripple Central and host of The Ripple Effect Podcast, where he explores what it really takes to build authentic, meaningful relationships.
He also owns Owner Insite, a construction project management software company. Steve runs The Pond, a community built around intentional connection and 8-Minute Ripple events.
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